Bridging the cultural gap in China for international business

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Yiwu is a city in east China's Zhejiang Province. This county-level city of about 1.2 million people is renowned around the world for being China's biggest market for daily commodities.

Tens of thousands of international business people come here daily to trade with their Chinese counterparts. What happens when disputes arise? Mediators who can bridge the cultures are needed.

Meet Syed Ummar Ali Bukhari, who came to Yiwu from Pakistan five years ago and started a trading business.

“Yiwu is right now a multinational and multicultural city. It's really a big trade oriented city," Bukhari said. "So the foreigners who are living here, they are doing every product. According to my information, there are more than one million products in the Yiwu market.”

More than 15 thousand merchants from over 100 countries around the world do business in these trade markets every day. They are an important part of the community. More than 400 thousand foreign businessmen also come to these markets every year to look for purchasing deals.

As people from different cultural and social backgrounds talk business, Bukhari said misunderstandings frequently occur. "Business is the name of a problem," he added. Basically, if you have problem, then you can say it's a business. If you don't have a problem, then it's not a business."

Bukhari has been a member of the Yiwu Mediation Committee. /CGTN Photo

To address the problem, Yiwu authorities established a mediation committee in 2013 aimed at resolving business conflicts. Bukhari joined as a volunteer two years later as part of the 20-man team.

"It feels like a small court, in which you have mediators sitting, and the suffering parties, both suffering parties are there. They have to provide us their proofs to justify who is right and who is wrong”, said Bukhari.

The committee has processed more than 400 cases since its inception, which has helped prevent economic losses of over 28 million yuan, or 4.4 million US dollars. Bukhari said he serves as a bridge across different languages, where many things get lost in translation.

"So language is a very big barrier in China, not only in Yiwu, all over China. Language is the biggest barrier. This is one reason why I joined this volunteer work”, said Bukhari.

Bukhari started his family here in Yiwu. As he plans to stay and grow in China for the long run, he said he is doing what he can to better the future of this international commercial city.